Shakedown

Final chance to prepare for the exhibition weekend, so the layout was fully assembled with all the stock for final testing...

A few little tweaks to iron out but nothing too major. A good opportunity to work out which locos suit which trains and tracks. A few more photos below...

Every spare piece of siding space will be in use and still some stock will have to be left in the boxes (but nowhere near as much as with the previous layout!)

We've got the layout running really well and there were no casualties or unexpected problems.

Hopefully it'll be an enjoyable weekend.

Build costs

I never kept a running tally of the cost of building the new layout - probably just as well but having discovered that Ebay keeps a purchase history I started totting up the expenditure.

In Ebay purchases alone, that's mainly the electronic gubbins, board dowels, feet, latches and scenery like the extra platforms, tunnel mouths and modrock,  the total comes to £504.10.

That figure doesn't include the cost of all the timber, the four litres of PVA glue, ballast, grass or sahara beige paint. Thankfully the track was recycled from the old layout, with any extras being liberated from the loft layout, which is now reduced to a single, small running loop of 12ft x 4ft!

Then there's the cost of having to buy new racking as the old arrangement failed, causing the new layout to crash onto the car, then there's the cost of the damage to the car...

Thankfully everything is now repaired but this is a day I wont forget in a hurry. Thankfully the layout escaped pretty much intact apart from a few crushed pieces of track, a bent signal and losing one of the suitcases from one of the platforms (the four litres of PVA glue probably helped)

In the interests of fairness I wont factor in the cost of the car or the new racking, even so I anticipate a final build cost of nearly £1000!

I wont be scrapping this one in a hurry..